Our Correspondent
Imphal, Oct. 31 (EMN): For the first time without the assistance of the experts from other countries, scientists from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) in collaboration with the Manipur Forest department and villagers released two radio satellite-tagged female Amur falcons ‘Puching’ named after Puching (Keibu Ching) village and ‘Irang’ named after Irang River in Manipur’s Tamenglong district on Thursday.
In a conversation with this reporter, WII scientist Dr. Suresh Kumar said that they have successfully released two birds at Puching village.
“I really feel wonderful and honoured to be part of this exercise,” said Dr. Suresh who had so far tagged 10 falcons.
The falcons were jointly released by village chairman Ramkhuanang Gonmei and Dr. Suresh in the presence of Tamenglong Forest division officials and villagers for the safe passage of the birds after a prayer offered by the village pastor Th Akham at around 7am.
‘Puching’ which weighs 195 gm and ‘Irang’ 155 gm were selected for tagging after three falcons were captured from Puching village on October 30. Dr. Suresh who had been camping in the hill district along with four other experts since October 18 to radio tag and study the migratory birds informed that the village (Puching) was the same village where one of the satellite-tagged falcon ‘Manipur’ was killed last year. Informing that this year, the team has taken up Amur falcon conservation seriously, he said people should highly appreciate them for their conservation efforts.
Amur falcon tagging programme is important because it give awareness to the common people about the bird, forest and its rich biodiversity.
Last year, two falcons - Tamenglong, a female named after Tamenglong district and Manipur, a male named after Manipur state were radio tagged on November 4, 2018, to study the flight route of these migratory birds which are important biological indicator. But, Manipur was found dead four days later at Puching area while Tamenglong lost contact in Zambia on December 14.
Forest range officer and chairman of Puching village thanked Rainforest Club Tamenglong and the public for spreading awareness programme on the migratory birds.
Range officer Kh Hitler also informed that three more falcons will be also released after tagging in the next few days.
The falcons spend summer at their breeding grounds in southeast Russia and northeast China. They migrate to their wintering grounds in South Africa undertaking a yearly journey of about 20,000 km. In their journey, these pigeon-sized birds arrive in large numbers during October in Nagaland and Manipur besides a few places in Northeast India. They leave the region in November after having enough food for their non-stop flight to Africa.
